Sunward Secrets 1e
=Spoilers!= This page is full of spoilers, so if you're a player you probably shouldn't read them, or you should at least talk to your gamemaster before doing so. ---- The following ideas expand on some of the material introduced regarding the inner system. As always, gamemasters should feel free to alter or even ignore this material as best fits their campaign settings—especially if they know their players have read this section. =Mercury's Antimatter Factories= Mercury’s proximity to the sun, and the excess amounts of energy this provides, makes the planet an ideal place for energy-intensive processes: particularly antimatter production. As noted in the text, several antimatter factories exist on or in orbit above Mercury. Each consists of multiple particle accelerators (for slamming atoms together) and enormous solar arrays for collecting energy. These factories produce around a kilo of antimatter each month. The antimatter must be stored in special magnetic containers, as any contact with physical matter will result in an explosion. Antimatter is valuable as a high-energy fuel, particular for spacecraft antimatter rockets. Its destructive capabilities, however, mean that antimatter facilities are very heavily secured and transported antimatter is carefully regulated, tracked, and guarded. Firewall keeps a close eye on entities capable of antimatter production and any possible breaches in antimatter security that might cause amounts to go missing. Since the Fall, there have been an unfortunate amount of such incidents, though these have been carefully concealed and hidden from the public. =Venusian Exsurgents= Active exsurgent nanoplagues cannot survive on the Venusian surface; they are swiftly destroyed by the extreme heat and pressure. No morph will ever be infected by a nanoplague in that environment. However, during the Fall, one of the TITANs experimented with the limits of adaptation of the xenomorphs it was creating. To that end, it created several dozen xenomorphs adapted for life on the Venusian surface that remain active to this day. These beings would swiftly die if they attempted to exist in the lower temperatures and pressures of the aerostats—they cannot survive above an altitude of 15 km, and they cannot long remain at that altitude. These exsurgents have built no cities or large structures and are far too small for orbital radar scans to notice. Firewall is aware of one incident in which it suspects some type of exsurgent-spawned xenomorphs may have played a role. In this incident, a small group of exsurgents raided a mining camp that had been shut down, but that was still equipped and lightly staffed. Problems with the mining equipment had forced the mining hypercorp to call for a full refit, during which it transferred away the tele-operating miners. Eight technicians sleeved in Q-morphs remained, refitting the mining gear. During the raid, the xenomorphs killed one technician and stole several pieces of mining equipment. They covered up their activities with a small explosion. The cause of this explosion remains unknown, but is assumed to be further evidence of the faulty equipment, which the miners had recently purchased. Unwilling to create an incident, the mining corp covered up the details and took efforts to silence the witnesses. It does, however, remain on active guard against any more signs of sabotage. Currently, the exsurgents are examining how to adapt their stolen technology so that it can create basilisk hacks to reprogram the minds of miners, transforming unsuspecting transhumans into unknowing allies. This process has been difficult so far, however, and with limited resources the exsurgents will need to steal more equipment before they can complete this plan. =Aliens on Venus= Other than the Pandora Gates, which almost everyone believes to have been created by the TITANs, there is essentially no evidence for alien visitation in the solar system. However, that’s because no one has looked for any evidence on the Venusian surface. Aliens visited the solar system approximately 300 million years ago, but time has left no record of their visit—except on Venus. The aliens could not visit Venus, but they sent a few exceptionally durable probes there—probes that tough enough that they still survive, though they have been completely inactive for more than 300 million years. For unknown reasons, the aliens removed all evidence of their presence from the solar system. They even included self-destruct mechanisms in all of the Venusian probes. However, in two of these probes, the self-destruct mechanisms failed and the aliens were unable to recover the probes due to the difficulties involved in reaching the Venusian surface. Each probe is now a somewhat worn and corroded 20 cm diameter sphere with 50 cm legs. Internal examination immediately reveals the probes are not made by transhuman technology and they are clearly very old. While their discovery would set off a careful survey of the Venusian surface, nothing else will be found. Whether these probes carry anything of interest is entirely up to the gamemaster, though their value simply for scientific research is immense, so they make excellent macguffins around which various parties and factions would compete. =Secret Aerostats= Gamemasters seeking to explore the idea of hidden aerostats in the Venusian atmosphere can make use of these suggestions. Cloud 9 The aerostat known as Cloud 9, home to 1,500 morphs, is an illegal manufacturing facility that develops and manufactures restricted technologies including both weapons and unrestricted AGIs. Although the station is controlled by a small group of criminals linked to the Night Cartel, it also has secret but close ties with Egonomix, a software hypercorp that specializes in complex systems, for whom they perform research on both AGIs and incapacitating inputs. Egonomix exchanges data with Cloud 9 using quantum farcasters. Occasionally Egonomix researchers farcast a fork down to Cloud 9 to engage in research and monitor developments there. The Egonomix reps who work with Cloud 9 do their best to ignore the weapons and contraband research and production. In fact, Egonomix policy is to have their personnel stripped of any memories of Cloud 9 when they are no longer needed. When Cloud 9 requires supplies, Egonomix makes certain that one of their shuttles or the automated delivery capsules that regularly visit the Venusian aerostats goes off course and is either lost in the clouds or has brief engine troubles that cause it to fall deeper into the clouds. Egonomix also has an ongoing program to develop a near perfect model of Venusian weather patterns. In addition to being able to sell the program to the Morningstar government when it is completed, this project provides Egonomix with an excellent reason to send probes and survey vessels into the deeper portions of the Venusian atmosphere. A few of these Egonomix ships deliver and drop off specially shielded natural buoyancy containers that float in the Venusian atmosphere until Cloud 9 retrieves them. Cloud 9 delivers examples of its work in similar containers that Egonomix and other shuttles retrieve. Cloud 9 currently delivers their weapons and weapon designs using a similar system of quantum farcasters communications and automated probe drops with arms smugglers, some of whom are based on the Gerlach orbital habitat. Demand for weapons is on the rise, however, and so the Cloud 9 cartel has begun putting pressure on Egonomix to use their shuttles and automated delivery pods to carry these weapons. Egonomix has so far refused. If faced with the threat of Cloud 9 ceasing to work with them, however, Egonomix will agree to allow these shipments. If Egonomix was found to engage in arms smuggling as well as unlicensed cognitive and AGI research, their entire Venusian operations and staff would be in jeopardy. Egonomix is also a competitor with Cognite, and they both take an avid interest in each other’s secret research. Should Cognite learn of Egonomix’s relationship with Cloud 9, they might wish to steal it, or take knowledge of it public to damage Egonomix’s credibility. On the other hand, the Cloud 9 cartel may look to sell their research to Cognite if Egonomix fails to comply with their weapon shipment demands. Markov's Hide The other major hidden aerostat is home to 200 morphs and is known as Markov’s Hide. It exists as a base for aerial pirates and transfer point for stolen and smuggled goods. Several Venusian aerostats manufacture valuable cutting-edge electronics and biologicals, including prototypes and gear made with highly specialized equipment. Working with contacts who are employed shipping legitimate cargo to orbit or other habitats, the smugglers on Markov’s Hide arrange for additional merchandise to be included with shipments that are launched during periods of high electrical activity. Specially designed air vehicles from Markov’s Hide intercept these transport containers, remove the additional goods, which were previously recorded as damaged or lost, and send the container on its way, without anyone else becoming aware of their efforts. Occasionally, when their contacts in the large aerostats mention a particularly valuable container is being shipped, the smugglers steal the entire shipping container, capturing it in a manner that makes it look like the shipment was lost in a storm. The smugglers of Markov’s Hide make certain that the number of containers they steal is no more than one quarter the number that are regularly lost to natural storms. =The Neo-Synergists= The neo-synergists are based in Octavia and comprise a moderately wealthy collective that has been responsible for several valuable technological developments. While stories circulate about the inhumanly brilliant transhumans linked via a potentially dangerous and unsafe hive mind, the reality is quite different. The neo-synergists share a mindspace with each other, but they retain their individual identities. The primary benefit of the link is an ability to plumb the group’s combined knowledge and experience and act as a single unit. The Hyper-Mesh Link In game terms, there are several specific advantages and potential disadvantages gained from an implanted hypermesh link. On the advantage side, neo-synergists have access to the real-time experiences, thoughts, and emotions of other neo-synergists. Each neo-synergist also gains the benefits of mnemonic augmentation (p. 307, EP) and has instant access to each other’s memories. This ability to access these experiences and memories of others is exercised at will—it is not always on, though the neo-synergists remain in constant contact. Neo-synergists can “broadcast” their thoughts and sensory input to others at will, and even when they are not trying to do so, they tend to broadcast their low-level emotions to each other. It takes only a simple Perception Test to become aware of another neo-synergist’s change of emotional state, which can be useful if any neo-synergist is harmed or threatened. In terms of sharing knowledge and experience, each neo-synergist gains a +5 COG bonus while linked to their hypermesh mind-state. Additionally, neo-synergists almost always take advantage of teamwork (p. 117, EP) on Task Actions, calling on the skills and know-how of others in their hypermesh. The maximum modifier from teamwork is raised from +30 to +50 for neo-synergists. The level of intimacy the hypermesh provides comes with certain disadvantages, not the first of which is the inability to keep secrets from or deceive other neo-synergists. Gamemasters who wish to play up the creepiness and prototype nature of the neo-synergists are encouraged to add other drawbacks and side effects. These can range from intermittent periods of distraction as the neo-synergist is involuntarily entranced by the thoughts, emotions, and experiences of others in the hypermesh to a loss of the sense of self from so much intimate contact with others, potentially resulting in mental stress, derangements, and even long-term disorders. Not every subject takes to the mesh mind equally well, and new neo-synergists may freak out at the invasiveness and lack of privacy or become overwhelmed by the input from so many minds on the hypermesh, losing the inability to discern individual neo-synergists from each other. One noticeable side effect exhibited by many neo-synergists is a type of “personality leakage” that occurs as individual neo-synergists start expressing personality traits, microexpressions, and other kinesic traits of others in the hypermesh. This quirk can be noted with a Kinesics Test. When it comes to identifying a neo-synergist in a new morph, however, or even just reading the intent or nonvocal/emotive communication from a neo-synergist, the gamemaster can apply a modifier from –10 to –30, depending on the severity of the personality leakage at that particular time. The shared mindspace of the hypermesh only applies when the neo-synergists are actually meshed together. This mesh acts as a virtual private network within the local mesh, but is not hackable by conventional means. Neo-synergists who are cut off from this mesh lose the COG and Task Action bonuses until they are relinked. If cut off from the hypermesh for a long period (more than 2 hours), they suffer a –5 COG penalty due to distraction and depression until reconnected. If cut off for an extended period (more than a day), they suffer mental stress (1d10 DV). If they remain disconnected for longer, they may suffer additional stress at the gamemaster’s discretion. More To It? The possibility remains that there is more to the hypermesh than meets the eye. Rumors of neo-syner-gists engaging in strange, secretive projects, speaking in unknown languages, and exhibiting other unusual behaviors have some worried that the hypermesh might be under some sort of external influence, or that the neo-synergists have some sort of hidden agenda. Gamemasters who wish to exploit this may play up the mystery and oddities. There may be rumors of things going quite bad with new neo-synergists—until they are properly “absorbed” by the group mind, that is. Perhaps the ability to keep secrets from other neo-synergists is a skill that must be learned, something that long-term synergists are already expert at. Player-Character Neo-Synergists The numbers of the neo-synergists continue to grow, but prospective members can only be accepted by a majority vote of the existing members. Because the members work so well together, such votes are often unanimous or at least close to it. With few exceptions, all new members are highly-intelligent scientists, engineers, technicians, or physicians whose interests parallel those of the existing neo-synergists. It is not recommended that player characters be allowed to play neo-synergists, for the simple reason that by being part of the group mind-state they have immediate access to the skills and memories of dozens of others—not to mention allies at their beck-and-call. Under certain circumstances, however, playing a neo-synergist could be an intriguing part of an adventure or campaign, particularly if the goal is to infiltrate the neo-synergists and find out what the real story is. In this case, the gamemaster should carefully balance the pros and cons of being part of the group mind-state. =Getting to Earth= A journey to the ruins of Earth can be an adventure unto itself. Doing so is not easy, but there are several methods that characters can exploit. Running the Barricade The most basic method of bypassing the killsat cordon is to simply take a fast and/or heavily armored ship and try to blast right through it. This method is dangerous and has a high risk of failure. The network of killsats, interceptors (p. 169), and other defenses is high tech and lethal. Scavengers and reclaimers have tried various tricks over the years, with limited degrees of success. These include assaulting the barricade from different points at once, swarming it with a bunch of small and fast craft, using an armada of high-signature drones as decoys, or even trying to “clear a path” by pushing an asteroid or comet through and using it as cover. Certain black market vendors claim to sell “maps” of the barricade with routes and points of insertion that are guaranteed to provide the best chances, though these claims are dubious at best. If this method is chosen by the characters, it is recommended that the attempt to run the barricade be played out as a dramatic scene rather than a full-on combat. While Piloting, sensor, and defensive weapons tests can be made by the characters, gamemasters should be wary about making the lives of the entire team depend on a couple of dice rolls. These tests should primarily be used to heighten tension and determine the degree of the success the characters have in punching through. For example, the dice rolls can be the difference between breezing through with little damage to a forced crash-landing or even abandoning ship in the midst of an atmospheric entry. If the gamemaster wants to reinforce that bad plans have consequences, of course, then by all means give the characters a difficult challenge and enforce the results. Dedicated transhumans will hopefully have the resources to try again, or try a different approach, once they have resleeved. High Dives Perhaps one of the best tricks employed by groups attempting to get down to Earth is to use a barricade run as cover. In this scenario, the group plans for their ship to be destroyed, but the characters jump free or eject right before this occurs and “space-dive” down into the atmosphere in high-dive suits (p. 167). The advantage of this plan is that the high-diving characters appear to be debris from the destroyed craft. This approach is not without risks, not the first of which is correct timing or the chance of an impact with actual debris thrown from the destroyed spacecraft. The defensive cordon is also wise to this trick and is known to target larger pieces of debris. If nothing else, however, a high-dive jump can be considered an emergency measure if a serious attempt to run the barricade fails. Space Elevators As mentioned in //Lack//, the fiction piece at the beginning of the EP core rulebook, one of the space elevators on Earth remains intact. Though it is largely believed to be nonfunctional, this is a ruse. It is in fact deactivated, but a dedicated team with the proper planning and know-how could theoretically reactivate the climber shuttle cars. The spaceport station at the elevator’s terminus is well-guarded, and the elevator itself is actively protected from debris, presumably by the Planetary Consortium or whatever entity is keeping the elevator in repair. The spaceport itself is far above the orbital altitude of the defensive cordon. Rather than reactivating the elevator and climber shuttles, a more discrete team could simply take advantage of the elevator’s cable and catch a ride down using a makeshift shuttle or platform of their own. This would require serious advance planning! Egocasting It is entirely possible that some egocasting stations still remain active on Earth and might be capable of accepting inbound egocasts. This would allow intrepid infomorphs to beam themselves down to Earth and possibly even resleeve if they could find an automated resleeving facility or body bank. A method such as this is intensely risky, however. The receiving egocaster could simply be a TITAN trap to ensnare more uploads, or the station’s mesh could be infected with TITAN/exsurgent virii. Rumors abound that some reclaimer and scavenger groups have established base camps down on Earth, complete with egocasting facilities. Any egocasts to and from Earth would have to bypass the defensive cordon’s jamming signals. It is also possible that groups such as Firewall, Oversight, or Project Ozma may have established similar dedicated facilities. Lunar Mass Drivers One of the more audacious and risky plans proposed by those seeking to get to Earth is to catch a “ride” in or on one of the mass driver shots still launched from Luna to bombard signs of TITAN concentrations and activities on Earth. If even feasible, such a plan would require infiltrating the systems that launch the mass driver bombardments to somehow hide or attach a survival capsule to one of the projectiles. Hitchhikers would need to be equipped with acceleration suits or couches in order to survive the mass driver’s accelerative forces without bring pulped. Though the defensive cordon allows these missiles through, the hitchhikers would need some way of abandoning the missile, surviving atmospheric entry, and/or slowing their descent. In theory, a well-timed ejection in high-dive suits (p. 167) could work. In theory. Getting Off Planet Once the characters have reached Earth and accomplished whatever they came down to do, they face the challenge of getting off the planet again. If they managed to bring an intact ship down to the surface, they can try to leave the same way. Even if they didn’t, they might be able to find an intact ship somewhere on Earth or perhaps repair/salvage one damaged during the Fall or left behind by scavengers. In many ways, this is more challenging than getting down to Earth, as ships have a much more significant chance of being detected on their way up and will be slowed down by Earth’s gravity well. The defensive cordon is also dedicated to ensuring that nothing from the TITANs escapes off the planet, so attempts to launch off-world are exceptionally difficult. If the characters have no cargo to bring back and don’t mind leaving their bodies behind, then egocasting is a considerably better option. Functional egocasting facilities still survive on Earth, while others could be repaired—or the characters could bring their own. The cordon attempts to jam and interfere with transmissions originating from Earth—they are wary about the TITANs broadcasting infections—but the effectiveness of these measures is up to the gamemaster. The most sure-fire way of egocasting off-Earth is to use a neutrino transceiver, as these transmissions cannot be blocked. Anticipating these challenges and difficulties, the characters’ mission could be considered one-way right from the start. Firewall and other groups have been known to send down operatives (often alpha forks) with no means of getting back once their objective is completed. Sometimes these missions are taken on voluntarily, sometimes the operatives won’t realize that their ticket is one-way until it is far too late. Awareness of a suicide mission is mentally stressful to even veteran agents, and appropriate mental stress should be applied (1d10 SV recommended). =Survivors on Earth= As mentioned in the Earth chapter, there may be millions of survivors still existing on Earth. Though the Planetary Consortium steadfastly denies this claim and will do their best to divert attention or cover up such inconvenient facts, anyone making the journey may indeed run across them. Though some of these may be post-apocalyptic survivalist bands eking out a bleak existence, surviving from monster machines and other threats in a devastated wasteland, others might be well-hidden and -equipped colonies tucked away in deep mountain holdouts, isolated stations, or deep undersea. Some of these may be under imminent threat from TITAN machines, others may be in risk of failing due to sepsis or running out of resources, while still others may not want to be found, content to live out their lives as hidden brinker colonies. More numerous than physical survivors are the frozen sleepers and infomorphs of those who failed to escape during the Fall. The TITANs harvested many of these sleepers, and others died when their facilities failed or fell victim to nuclear fallout, rampant nanoswarms, or other catastrophes. Yet many others survive in peaceful cryogenic sleep. =Dangers on Earth= Aside from the unpredictable and rapidly-shifting climate (p. 161) on Earth and lurking risks like nanovirii (p. 384, EP) and biowar plagues, there are many other dangers that explorers can face. Remaining TITAN war machines (pp. 382–382, EP) are the first of these, still active and common in many areas, particularly urban environments. These machines are known to actively hunt down transhumans and forcibly upload them, for purposes unknown. On occasion, however, they have been so engrossed in alien projects of their own devising, they have ignored transhumans entirely. Perhaps just as numerous are the exsurgents—transhumans infected and transformed by mutating strains of the exsurgent virus (pp. 362–370, EP). Many of these are still transhuman in outward appearance and demeanor, but their minds belong to alien intelligences. Others have been transformed into various xenomorphic forms and are no longer even remotely human. As a rule, these exsurgents are hostile to transhumans, and will seek to overpower and forcibly upload those they come across. Like the TITAN machines, many are engaged in their own unusual activities and projects, whether that merely be maintaining a community of thriving exsurgents or building some type of weapon or spacecraft to escape off-world. Those that can pass for unaffected transhumans have been known to pose as survivors in order to lure unsuspecting scavengers and reclaimers to their doom. Most dangerous of all, however, are the autonomous nanoswarms (p. 383, EP). These intelligent micro-machines are near-unstoppable opponents, often lying as invisible traps for careless prospectors (thus the necessity of maintaining working nano-detectors). Others are identifiable by the strange effects they have on the environment, the unusual machines they build, or the otherwordly creations they artistically devise and leave behind, like monuments to some alien gods. As noted, gamemasters can find details on these threats in the core rulebook. Further exploration of various threats on Earth will occur in upcoming Eclipse Phase sourcebooks. =Dormant Lunar Nanoplagues= Unlike both Mars and Earth, Luna was an exceptionally poor environment for the TITANs’ nanovirus attacks. While a nanovirus attack on New Mumbai transformed it into a TITAN-controlled hive, during the Fall several missiles from Earth carrying exsurgent nanoplagues struck Luna. Fortunately, all of these missiles landed on the barren Lunar surface and so had no effect. Lunar rock lacks all but the smallest traces of hydrogen and several other elements needed for the most active strains to construct devices from raw materials. Also, most of the Lunar surface is rarely visited and so these attacks infected no one. However, small swarms of various nanoplagues remained in place after the TITANs fled the solar system. Most of these swarms have since been destroyed by the intense solar radiation experienced by the Lunar surface. However, in crevices shaded from sunlight, small quantities of these nanoplagues wait in a dormant state, ready to activate and spread whenever they encounter a supply of raw materials. Several times a year, some morph or automated surveyor stumbles onto a small pocket of one of the nanoplagues and the robot or morph is transformed into some type of exsurgent (pp. 362–370, EP). Strict decontamination procedures prevent anyone or anything carrying active nanoplagues into any Lunar habitat. As a result, the primary danger is to travelers on the Lunar surface and anyone that they encounter. Dormant nanoplagues lying on the Lunar surface are completely undetectable from more that a meter away as long as they remain inactive. Even close up, they can only be found by using sophisticated and highly specialized sensors so the threat is difficult to detect and almost impossible to eliminate. Because they are dormant, nanodetectors will only spot them if given a direct sample or once the plague has become active. The vast majority of infections result in a morph—or more commonly a small robot drone—being transformed into a deadly killer. =New Mumbai Containment Zone= The developments with a potential exsurgent threat in the NMCZ are left deliberately vague and open to gamemaster speculation. As indicated in the text, a group of exsurgents seems to have been deep enough to survive the initial blast and robust enough to deal with the subsequent radiation. Since that time, the exsurgents have been waiting…and changing. They may simply be growing in number, they may be breeding new exsurgent types, or they may be growing together psychically (if not physically) into some sort of psi-epsilon-enhanced hive mind. If this alien mind mass continues to grow, its async abilities could extend further, possibly even threatening one of the three small Lunar settlements that are within 1,000 km of the ruins of New Mumbai. =TITAN Quarantine Zone= The TQZ on Mars is very similar to Earth in terms of potential TITAN/exsurgent threats (see Dangers on Earth, p. 176), though there has not (yet) been an active amount of weather-affecting nanoswarms. There is also less in the way of active exsurgents or large exsurgent communities—most of the danger explorers will encounter comes in the form of TITAN machines or autonomous nanoswarms.